


Way Down We Go

by deathishauntedbyhumans



Series: Copper and Brimstone [6]
Category: Copper and Brimstone, Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Airplanes, Airships, Betrayal, Character Study, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Emotions, Gen, Reflection, Song Lyrics, Written in an Hour, i couldn't even talk about button in this, i'm very Upset my friends, that will be some shit for the next reflection, there are other characters but it's late and i'm emotionally exhausted so this is how i live, unbetaed, written at midnight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 14:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14263563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathishauntedbyhumans/pseuds/deathishauntedbyhumans
Summary: My heart hurts, and so does Temerity's. So much for Idna Fencille.





	Way Down We Go

_ My body’s shaking _

_ My head is aching _

_ It feels like my heart is breaking _

 

The lock to Camilla Darlington’s room opens with the faintest of clicks, and then, I’m in. 

Her room is vast. That’s the first thing I notice. The rich tits (I’m picking up Ce’s language, I notice vaguely, but I can’t be bothered to correct it) really do have something for luxury around here. This room is much larger than the one that Kava, Van, Juno, and I are sharing upstairs. And there are  _ things  _ everywhere. This room isn’t  _ hers,  _ not really, but she’s definitely made herself right at home, here. It’s all I can do to tear my eyes away from the things I  _ know  _ would fetch a quick shower of gold to look for… other things, instead. 

There are papers scattered here and there, things of little importance that I only glance at before moving on. I’m going as slowly as I can without feeling like I’m going to implode, and that’s when I see it: the  _ seal _ . That symbol, that damned symbol, stares up at me in wax upon a piece of paper nearly hidden underneath a jewelry box. The lion seems to taunt me; there’s a rushing in my ears that sounds like roaring that is both familiar and not, and it sets me on edge. I glance around once, to ensure that I am still alone, and then pick up the letter. 

The seal is already broken, a fact for which I’m grateful. I’m not about to put it down again, now that it’s in my hands. I open the letter and scan it, my gaze flicking down to the greeting at the top and the signature at the bottom before I properly take in the rest of the content. I feel my eyes widen when the King’s signature pops out at me, and I take in a sharp breath before continuing. 

I can feel my blood  _ burning _ . Harriet and her father… they don’t have any idea. 

I read the letter twice before it truly sets in, and I have to set it down extra carefully to avoid doing something reckless like crumpling it in my fist. Elliot is alive, but they have…  _ done something  _ to him. They’re going to  _ use  _ him. And they’re going to start a war. 

Another fucking war. 

It takes me a few minutes to get under control. My gaze flits aimlessly about, but I don’t see anything that sets me on edge like the seal did. (I toy with a ring, not unlike the one I had sold before. It makes its way into my pocket. I cannot seem to help myself. Besides, she has so much jewelry lying about, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she doesn’t notice this one is gone.) 

Finally, I feel as if I can breathe again, and I shuffle carefully through the papers once more. There is handwriting that catches my eye, and I pick the page up, squinting at it. I can’t place it right away, and I’m nearly a third of the way through reading the message when I finally glance at the signature-- 

\--and  _ freeze.  _

“Idna,” the signature reads, in a curling script that I finally place as the same handwriting that she had written her address with. It’s  _ Idna _ , with a tell-all letter that tears me in two and makes me see red all at once. I cannot breathe again, but this time, the feeling doesn’t go away. I feel like I’m drowning, and I stare down at the letter, unseeing, before looking around the room twice more in an attempt to find something to cool my head. 

There is no such luck. Nothing catches my eye, and not even the shimmering promise of gold that could be had from the other jewelry in the room can quell the absolute disgust I feel welling up inside of me. Idna had been  _ playing  _ me. She had been playing me all along, and I fell for it. I had thought I was above this, above trusting the wrong people, above letting anyone play the game of making a fool of me. 

I had thought wrong. The thought kills me, and I exit Camilla Darlington’s room with only one thing on my mind. 

 

_ 'Cause they will run you down, down 'til the dark _

_ Yes, and they will run you down, down 'til you fall _

_ And they will run you down, down to your core _

_ Yeah, 'til you can't crawl no more _

 

Idna’s door is more difficult to open than Camilla’s was. My hands are shaking, and no matter how much I glare at them, I can’t seem to will them to stop. But it’s alright. I manage to pick the lock after a minute or so, and the door shuts behind me just a little louder than I would’ve liked once I’m inside. 

I don’t care if she knows if anyone has been inside of her room. She deserves it. The momentary pain of finding some of her possessions broken, or tampered with, or stolen… It’s nothing. It’s  _ nothing  _ compared to what I’m feeling right now, and I don’t  _ care  _ what she thinks. 

My heart aches. I close a fist around a handful of necklaces and shove them into the same pocket as Camilla Darlington’s ring, and ignore it as best as I can. 

I move on to what looks like a desk, covered in papers and writing and… a journal. I pick up the journal. Most of it is nothing, fluff and nonsense, but Camilla Darlington’s name stops me on one page, and I read it more closely. I feel my body go hot and then cold, and then hot, all over again. 

Another letter. This has been going on… since the masquerade, and before it, too. Any hope I’d had of the letter being a fake, of Camilla planting it in her room because she somehow knew I was going to go into it looking for trouble… The thoughts all vanish, and I want to  _ hurt  _ something. I want to hurt  _ her _ . 

My knife, sheathed and warm against my skin, seems to  _ burn  _ as I stand in her room, and I can barely force myself to stop a hand from moving towards it. 

I want to look around again, but the sheer  _ emotion  _ that won’t go away floods through my mind every time I turn, so I shake my head and lift my chin and go. 

I kick a chair to the floor as I leave. It doesn’t make me feel any better, but the sight of the thing on the ground isn’t unwelcome, so I leave it there. 

Ce is in the hallway when I walk out. I don’t care. I can’t  _ bring myself  _ to care. There is nothing more I want now than to start a fight, to do something with the blood that is rushing in my ears that I don’t know how to feel. 

But Ce doesn’t rise to my bait, and I don’t have it in me to pursue the issue, especially as we’re interrupted by Levi, the guardsman who’d taken Ce back to their room after he’d gotten too drunk to stay awake. He has a gun. For one glorious, carefree moment, I nearly open my mouth and dare him to shoot it. 

But Ce speaks up more quickly than I do. I suppose I should be grateful, but all I can feel is overwhelmed. 

I expect our room to be empty when I enter, so I’m surprised to find Kava sitting on the bed, with Button in her arms. I can’t even manage to fight with her when she speaks. I’m still angry, but that anger is slowly draining, and the emotion that’s replacing it is so foreign to me now that it takes me too long to place it. 

Once I do, I realise that it isn’t just  _ one  _ emotion. 

Guilt. Betrayal. Sadness. Longing. Fear. 

_ Fear _ . 

Kava comforts me, and I don’t fight it. I can’t. (I’m shocked to find that I don’t even want to.) My arms feel weak, and there are hot, hot tears dripping down my face. I don’t know how to make them stop. 

They stop themselves, though, at the knock on the door. I dry my face hastily as Ce enters the room, and we all find ourselves in agreement.

When Juno and Van rejoin us, we all share what we know. And when Harriet finally joins us, too… We plot. 

It is all we have left to do. 

 

_ Yeah, I’m empty inside, I just don’t feel alive _

_ And I don’t wanna live, but I’m too scared to die _

 

The plane isn’t overtly large, but it seems as though it’ll fit us all, so it’s the best escape plan we have. We all clamber inside of it as quickly as we can: Ce in the pilot’s seat, Juno right behind. Kava, Van. I try to gesture Harriet inside, but she pushes me ahead. I don’t bother to argue. I settle in beside Van--

\--just as Harriet slams the door shut behind me. 

She runs over to a lever and pulls it, and the platform that the plane is on begins to rise. I feel like I’m choking, like I’m dying, because Idna and the loss of her was one matter, but losing Harriet…? 

Losing Harriet is entirely another. I yell at her, but I can’t hear her response. 

Too close to us, the shadow of another airship looms. I feel myself stiffening, my voice hardening, panic lacing the edges, as I urge Ce to go. 

Leaving Harriet is painful, but dying now would be worse. 

The other airship, too black against the dark sky for comfort, begins its descent, and it manages to hit the landing pad of the  _ Princess Hortense  _ just as our little plane takes to the air. 

I’m too busy staring at the angry mob of militant people pouring from the other ship to notice that anything is wrong, but Van is clutching at me, his lithe arms gripping me too tightly, and he is speaking. And he is  _ scared _ . 

I don’t want to be scared. 

(I’m  _ scared _ .) 

Ce knows that something is wrong. Ce has to fix this. Ce  _ has  _ to fix this. 

The plane dives sharply towards the ground. Black smoke billows up around us, and I think I begin to cough, but I can’t tell where I end and Van begins because he is holding onto me so tightly. I am holding onto him, too. I don’t remember putting my arms around him, but once I realise what’s happening, my grip tightens. 

The plane is still falling. The nose begins to pull up, in a last-ditch effort to even out, but the trees are too close for comfort and I can’t breathe again and everything is happening to fast and Juno is screaming and I can’t hear anything but their voice and the sound of the plane sputtering and coughing and creaking and cracking and the trees are getting even closer and I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t I can’t I can’t--

 

_ And way down we go _

_ Oh, way down we go _

_ Say, way down we go _

_ Way down we go _

 

I wake up, and everything  _ aches.  _ My entire body is alight with pain, and I groan, only to hear an answering groan somewhere… above me? I can’t quite tell. Everything is fuzzy, and my mind feels like mush. Juno’s voice breaks through my stupor, as does Ce’s sometime after. 

Opening my eyes is the worst experience I’ve ever had. Even the barest hint of light on the horizon is enough to make my head hurt even more than it already did. I cough once, and bite my lip hard to keep from crying out. 

It would make sense that I would be used to pain, after all this time. But every time, something manages to surprise me. 

I’m alive, though, and that’s something. And Juno is alive, and Ce is alive, and Van--

Van. 

Van. 

I say his name, and he doesn’t answer me. Pure, unadulterated  _ fear  _ grips at my heart again, real and raw and even more painful than the way my physical body hurts. Van isn’t responding. Van should be responding. 

I say his name again. Nothing. 

I’m trembling as I push twisted metal debris from off of both of us. His arms are still around me, and he’s too close for me to tell whether or not he’s breathing. 

For a horrible, horrible moment, I don’t think he is, and I consider my dagger for the second time in the past few hours, this time for use on myself. 

And then, I can see the telltale rise and fall of Van’s chest, and I sag with relief against him, my forehead resting somewhere against his shoulder, where it has rested so many times before for so many different reasons. 

He’s alive. He’s alive. 

And Kava is alive, too. I am relieved. I am  _ so  _ relieved. (I am surprised at how relieved I am.) 

There is a letter in Ce’s hand, along with a large sheet of blue paper. He reveals both. The blueprint horrifies me, and the letter…

The letter makes my voice crack and shatter as I read it, because Harriet  _ could have saved herself _ , but she chose to stay back, on the ship, with Percy and Camilla Darlington and everyone else there who wished her harm. Because she was trying to protect us. 

I should feel grateful, but all I feel is numb. 

We should move from here, I say. We should move one, because they’ll know we’re here. We have to move on. We have to move on. 

I have to move on, because my heart hurts more than my body does, and I don’t know how I can possibly live with that. 

 

_ I’m drowning up my sorrows _

_ There’s rules I’ll never follow _

_ Pretend there’s no tomorrow _

_ I wish there was no tomorrow _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in so much pain :D 
> 
> Idna, Levi, Camilla, Elliot, and Harriet belong to @bagobats on tumblr  
> Kava belongs to @mushygreens on tumblr  
> Van belongs to @dennibun on tumblr  
> Juno belongs to @sarcastic-skeptic on tumblr  
> Ce belongs to @highandhonorablequeenofgoose on tumblr
> 
> Song lyrics are from Way Down We Go by Kaleo (and title is from it lmao) and Empty by Olivia O'Brien
> 
> Kudos/comments are love. Come scream at me on tumblr @deathishauntedbyhumans


End file.
